DaveyD.com reports Boots Riley of the Coup will be doing double duty this year. On weekends you may find him in the studio or on stage turning out a show. During the week from 8am-3pm he’ll be teaching his high school class ‘The Social Justice Issues of Hip Hop’. Students will be presented a rigorous course that will examine the economic and social conditions here in the US that have accompanied and impacted the development of Hip Hop. Read more.

Darren Keast of the Dallas Observer spoke with Boots Riley of the Coup about how he sometimes finds his efforts at odds with the so-called “conscious” hip-hop movement. “I think that a lot of the conscious rappers are saying, ‘You need to do this, you need to stop doing this,'” he says. “They’ve been given the wrong information as to what are the big problems going on in the world. Just ’cause I’ve been privy to some good information, it’s made us [make sure to] not be too preachy. That’s what saves it from totally eating up the music.”

Davey D gave his thoughts on the recent controversy that Michelle Malkin of the New York Post has created when she blasted Washington Post writer David Segal who dared pick The Coup’s album ‘Party Music’ as his favorite for the year. Davey says, “All in all Ms Malkin seems to be part of this new ilk of self-selecting Patriots. She wants to lead a crusade against the Coup and this Washington Post writer who enjoyed their album Party Music while in the same breath say we have freedom of expression.” Check out his comments here.

Writers from the Cleveland Free Times picked their top albums of the year and Franklin Soults picked The Coup’s Party Music saying, “Nothing feels more alive at the close of this deadly year than this stunningly angry and compassionate manifesto of leftist rhymes and electrofunk grooves.”

Launch.com spoke with The Coup’s Pam The Funkstress who talked about the group’s difficulty in getting an audience and keeping it real. Said Pam, “If you’re not bling-blingin’ and drinkin’ the Cristal and drivin’ a Bentley, you’re not considered anything. The Benz is their moms, the money they borrowed, the cellular phone is their friends–it’s just a bunch of fake stuff. But I’m gonna be Pam The Funkstress and I’m gonna be Pam, and I’m not gonna change for anything.”

Philly.com’s Tom Moon talked to Coup rapper aymond “Boots” Riley about the general reaction to the group following the attacks of September 11, since the group’s planned album cover had them blowing up the World Trade Center. Riley said, “It was weird, all of a sudden people were talking about us. Saying some racist [stuff] and some things that showed to me they had no idea what the Coup is about. Some of the hip-hop message boards got really hateful. Make no mistake: I was saddened by what happened [in the attacks]. But I can’t help that it did bring awareness about what we’re doing.”

Unfortunately the fluff piece doesn’t address the likely real reason for attacks against Riley, who after the attacks pointed the finger at the U.S. government and said “The Coup does not support and has no respect for the American flag,” and that “No one will be admitted to a Coup show wearing red, white and blue — they’re violent gang colors.”

DaveyD.com reports Coup rapper Boots Riley has made some eye raising comments following the terror attacks against the United States and has proclaimed no one wearing an American Flag will be admitted into any of his shows.(more…)